Dillon Brooks, of Viral Flop Fame, Grasps for Stardom at Oregon

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Dillon Brooks, right, celebrating after a 3-point shot in the closing minutes in a game against Arizona State this month.CreditCreditChris Pietsch/Associated Press

By Tal Pinchevsky

Feb. 15, 2017

LOS ANGELES — As a standout forward on an Oregon team that entered the season ranked fifth in the nation, Dillon Brooks had lofty expectations for his junior season. He hoped to help the Ducks defend their Pac-12 Conference title. He hoped to lift his stock among N.B.A. scouts and possibly bring a national championship to Eugene.

What he never predicted was that to do any of that, he also would have to overcome viral video infamy.

“I couldn’t even go on my phone,” Brooks said of the days after cameras caught him in a theatrical flop in a game against Utah in late January. “I had to turn it off.”

In Brooks’s defense, the clip in question — captured during the Ducks’ Jan. 26 victory against Utah — is a remarkable piece of video. Returning from a leg injury that forced him to miss a previous game, Brooks led all scorers with 19 points in a 73-67 victory over the Utes. But his most memorable play came when, trying to defend Utah’s Sedrick Barefield as he dribbled in from the wing, Brooks tumbled backward — despite a glaring lack of contact — before flailing mid-descent and landing on the opposite side of the court.

It was a spirited embellishment that Brooks had hoped would get him a foul call. What it got him instead was widespread infamy on social media, as reporters and fans alike crowned the play the worst flop they had ever seen.

Weeks later, and in the middle of another strong season that Brooks says he hopes will end with No. 7 Oregon (22-4) reaching the Final Four, he is still hearing about it.

“All around, when I go on the road, people say ‘flop’ and stuff,” he said after a victory at Southern California on Saturday. “But it motivates me to win the game and shut them up.

“My teammates make fun of me still. They can do it. It’s all fun. The fans, they can do whatever they want. I’m just mostly focused on what’s going on on the court and winning games.”

Brooks’s theatrics were not his first bizarre brush with the headlines. After celebrating a 3-pointer late in an 82-68 win over Duke in last season’s N.C.A.A. tournament, Brooks was involved in a postgame exchange with Blue Devils Coach Mike Krzyzewski. Brooks and Krzyzewski disputed the nature of the coach’s comments; Brooks told reporters that he had been admonished for his celebration, and Krzyzewski initially denied that, but audio later supported Brooks’s version, and the coach apologized to him and Oregon’s coach, Dana Altman.

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Brooks after falling during a basketball game in Salt Lake City in January. Video captured the fall, and reporters and fans alike crowned the play the worst flop they had seen.CreditRick Bowmer/Associated Press

For Altman, both episodes were symptomatic of Brooks’s approach to the game.

“I like his passion,” Altman said. “We’d rather have a guy we have to slow down a little bit than a guy you’re continually begging to play hard.

“You don’t ever have to worry about him playing hard. He’s going to make mistakes, but he makes them full speed.”

Brooks’s unbridled energy first emerged during his time at Findlay Prep, the independent high school program in Henderson, Nev., that has become a prep powerhouse since its founding in 2006. That standard is partly a credit to the program’s recruitment of Canadian players: Toronto-based players have been a fixture at Findlay, including Anthony Bennett, Tristan Thompson and the team’s current star, the Syracuse signee O’Shae Brissett.

“They’ve got a lot of talent up there,” the Findlay Prep assistant coach Rodney Haddix said. “You’d be a fool not to pay attention to Canadian basketball.”

A native of Mississauga, Ontario, Brooks hoped to follow the path carved by Thompson, Bennett and Cory Joseph, Toronto natives who starred at Findlay before becoming first-round N.B.A. draft picks.

But the stardom that his Canadian countrymen nurtured at Findlay eluded Brooks. Stuck behind the seniors Kelly Oubre and Rashad Vaughn, Brooks struggled to find minutes on a star-laden team that routinely contended for the high school national championship. While Oubre and Vaughn were on their way to being selected in the first round of the 2015 N.B.A. draft, Brooks was having trouble attracting the interest of major programs.

“It motivated me a lot,” Brooks said of that period. “It motivated me to be patient and just keep working on my game. When it comes, it comes.

“It’s coming right now.”

After a challenging season in Nevada, it was Brooks’s return to Toronto that ultimately drew the attention of Altman and Oregon. It was in his hometown that he truly found his form playing for C.I.A. Bounce, the Toronto A.A.U. program that had groomed N.B.A. players like Thompson, Bennett, Andrew Wiggins and Tyler Ennis, whose brother, Dylan, is a guard at Oregon.

A year removed from a No. 1 seed in the N.C.A.A. tournament, where his Ducks lost in the round of 8, Brooks is undoubtedly the most versatile player on a team looking to take the next step in this year’s tournament. Already the team’s most dynamic scorer (14.9 points a game) and among its top passers and defenders, he has added an improved jump shot to an on-court portfolio that has drawn comparisons to LeBron James from his Oregon teammates — when they are not ribbing him for the flop.

Brooks says he is willing to deal with the glare of viral video infamy, as long as it culminates in a championship and confirmation that all his hard work paid off.

“I was patient waiting,” he said. “My time is now.”

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 14 of the New York edition with the headline: From Ridicule, a Star Mines Deeper Passion. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe